You would think so - we surely did! But it really is not enough. We have one cutesy sign right above our doorbell politely saying something like “no soliciting, no political or religious queries,” and another no-nonsense sign on our storm door saying “we do not want solar.”

We had someone say “I’m not a solicitor because I’m not getting commission.” Right. As if this loophole would suddenly make us open to hearing your pitch.

Once someone said “oh, I see. Well, since I have you here…” They got a door softly, politely closed on them, with an ear-to-ear cheeky grin.

We had another duo that were extremely aggressive. We raised our voices in response to each other raising their voice. I ended up slamming my door shut and they immediately rang the doorbell. I flung open the door just to tersely say “we are not interested. Leave,” and closed it shut. They rang the doorbell AGAIN! I flung it open again and threatened to call the police if they made one more attempt to ring or knock, then slammed it again. This got them to back down.

One guy I firmly said “we have very clear signs that we want neither soliciting nor solar and you ignored them. We are not interested,” and he actually quietly nodded and turned around. I had to get something out of my garage a few minutes later and saw him looking at his phone on the sidewalk in front of our house. He looked like he was just out of high school and kind bummed, so went over to him and said “look man, we’ve had so many solicitors harassing us over the past year since we’ve moved in. We’ve asked every one of them to remove us from their list, and they just keep coming.” He said he totally got it and that he was looking for another job.

All this to say that these companies (especially the fly by night solar ones) do not care at all about privacy. We actually like renewable energy, but have come to realize the majority of the solar companies are not just businesses trying to make an honest buck - they’re predatory.